Third baseman Travis Shaw slugged the first two home runs of his major league career and had four RBIs as the Boston Red Sox overcame another shaky start from Joe Kelly in an 11-7 win over the Tampa...

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

Wall St. edges up on Intel but posts weekly loss

By ANGELA MOONReuters

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks edged up on Friday, boosted by bullish news from the tech sector, but major indexes fell for the week as unrest in Iraq kept investors on edge.

Intel Corp was one of the S&P 500's biggest gainers and one of Nasdaq's most active names, but overall gains were capped as investors kept a close watch on violence in Iraq that drove oil prices to their highest since September.

Analysts are worried about the impact a protracted period of high commodity prices could have on economic growth, especially with indexes near record levels.President Barack Obama said on Friday he needs several days to determine how the United States will help Iraq deal with a militant insurgency, but he ruled out sending U.S. troops back into combat and said any intervention would be contingent on Iraqi leaders becoming more involved.

"The situation in Iraq is another one of these geopolitical flare-ups that have a short-term impact on the market. It will continue to create volatility in the oil market, but I don't think it will spill over that much to equities," said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 41.55 points or 0.25 percent, to 16,775.74, the S&P 500 gained 6.05 points or 0.31 percent, to 1,936.16, and the Nasdaq Composite added 13.02 points or 0.3 percent, to 4,310.65.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.9 percent, the S&P fell 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq was down 0.25 percent.

The week's decline was the first after three weeks of consecutive gains on the S&P 500. For the year, the broad market index is up about 4.8 percent.

Brent crude edged further above $113 a barrel on Friday, up about $4 since the start of the week, on concerns that an insurgency in Iraq could trigger civil war and eventually hit oil exports.

In macroeconomic news, U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell in June as views by consumers with the lowest incomes soured, according to the preliminary June read from the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's index.